Troika
by Julia456
Summary: Deryn, Alek, and... Anastasia.
1. When Ill

**Note:** This was inspired by Holly Marie Fowl's very cute story "Speak Now", although it otherwise has nothing to do with that. Put simply, I love Anastasia and wanted to play with her myself. The girl may be a saint now, but when she was alive… well, I still think the best term is "holy terror".

And before anyone asks: yes, there will be more. :)

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_"The most important thing when ill is to never lose heart."_

_ - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin_

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This has _barking disaster_ written across it in twenty-foot-high letters.

The servant announces her, and Deryn remembers to curtsy, not bow, as she enters the solarium. For all the good it does her: she's promptly blinded by a camera flash and her bum nearly ends up on the tiled floor.

She blinks hard, catching her balance again as she clears her vision. Barking _disaster_.

Across the solarium, Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia lowers the camera. "So sorry, Miss Sharp," she says – a politeness belied by the sly twinkle in her eyes. Her English is perfect, with no trace of an accent. "It's a wedding present, and I haven't entirely figured out the flash. Clankers make everything so _complicated_, on purpose I believe. They've a mania for gears, don't they?"

What do you say to that? Thrown off-balance in more ways than one, Deryn settles on, "It's a lovely camera."

Anastasia gives it a critical glance. "I prefer my old firefly, but Mother insisted I leave that at home. _Danke_, Johann," she says to the servant, who bows and leaves. "Please, have a seat, Miss Sharp."

Deryn waits until Anastasia sits before she takes a chair herself; she knows that much protocol, at least. Feeling like a trespasser in the palace she's made her home for years, she keeps a wary eye on the other young woman.

They're of the same age, nearly. The Grand Duchess has reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes, but isn't very pretty, and is dressed rather carelessly, although she smells strongly of perfume. Deryn is several inches taller; Anastasia outweighs her by at least a stone, if not more, and is thick in all the wrong places.

But Anastasia's father is the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, and her blood is as royal as they come – more royal, in fact, than her soon-to-be husband's. And much, much more royal than Deryn could ever hope to be.

"Thank you for inviting me, Your Highness," Deryn says, trying not to let the words stick in her throat.

"Anastasia Nikolaevna, please," the other young woman says. The sly twinkle returns. "It's how all of my servants at home address me."

And what do you say to _that?_ Deryn has the sudden urge to whack Anastasia Nikolaevna over the sodding head with her new camera. Luckily, she's saved by the arrival of a servant with tea things. Anastasia thanks this one by name, too, and unlike her comments to Deryn, the kindness seems sincere.

Deryn sips at her tea and wonders, again, why she agreed to attend this farce – and why the Grand Duchess would want to meet in the first place.

Anastasia is in no apparent hurry to enlighten her. She's looking around the floor and chairs, teacup and saucer balanced in one hand. "Where did Sasha get to...? Sasha!" She leans over the arm of her chair and whistles like a sailor. Little clawed feet immediately skitter toward them, and suddenly there's a miniature bear wobbling around the Grand Duchess' legs.

"There you are, my baby," Anastasia coos, picking up the fabricated beastie one-handed and plopping it into her lap. It licks at her chin and the bottom of her teacup. "Isn't it darling? Father gave it to me."

"Aye, it's dead adorable," Deryn agrees, enchanted despite herself. Sasha is just like a proper bear - brown fur, black eyes, stubby tail - only smaller than a cat. Cuddlier than a real bear, too. (Or some cats, for that matter; her auntie's comes to mind.)

Sasha makes a yowling sort of grumble when it sees it's not going to be getting a snack, and hops down from Anastasia's lap again to snuffle around the floor.

" 'It's dead adorable," Anastasia says, perfectly mimicking Deryn's accent, but giving the words a nasty twist. "What a charming turn of phrase. Is that how everyone talks in Scotland?"

"I wouldn't know," Deryn says shortly, "I'm only from Glasgow. Is this how everyone in Russia treats their guests?"

Anastasia's blue eyes go wide in false innocence. "I wouldn't know; I'm only from St. Petersburg. As is that little fellow." She crooks a finger at Sasha. "Apparently all the fashionable Viennese ladies _must _have one now. A fine revenge, don't you think? Seeing a Clanker general forced to buy a Russian bear for his daughter… or his wife… or his mistress."

Deryn puts her teacup down with a clatter. "Four years," she says, angry.

"I'm sorry?" Anastasia asks. There's nothing apologetic about it.

Her temper is getting the best of her, and her voice rises as she goes: "Four years Alek and I have been together. And I don't regret a second of it, so you can take your bear and your camera and get stuffed! _Your Highness_."

Anastasia blinks at her. Then – incredibly – the Grand Duchess turns her head and laughs.

There's a bit of a cackle to it, as if she's a wee devil that's finally met it's match. The impression isn't helped by the sidelong glance Anastasia gives Deryn: full of mischief and plotting.

"And imagine," Anastasia says, saluting with her teacup, "I didn't think I'd like you, Miss Sharp."

"I still don't like _you_, if that makes you feel better," Deryn says.

The other girl flaps one hand in a dismissive wave. "Of course you don't. I'm usurping your place – I'm not so naïve as to fail to realize _that_. You really needn't worry; I'm sure he and I will grow fond of each other in time, but truth to tell, Aleksandar Ferdinand seems rather dull. If that makes you feel better," she adds, mocking again.

Deryn gives the camera another glance. It looks heavy enough to put a sizable dent in someone's head; all those gears, you know. "Oh, I feel just brilliant, thank you, Your Highness."

"Anastasia Nikolaevna, please." Her smile has a cruel edge. "It's touching, really, how desperately he tried to avoid this. Do you know, he hired people to trace your family tree, hoping for the tiniest drop of royal blood? Of course they didn't find anything. You're as common as dirt."

Well, that's the end of _this_ disaster.

Deryn stands and brushes off her skirts – barking stupid things; she ought to have worn trousers – and says, "You're lucky I don't fancy starting a diplomatic crisis today. I'm leaving."

The Grand Duchess makes a moue of false disappointment. "But you haven't finished your tea."

Deryn snaps, "I mean I'm leaving Austria. As soon as I bloody well can."

For the first time, Anastasia seems caught by surprise. She blinks. "Why?"

Now it's Deryn's turn to laugh – except all she can manage is a short, unamused bark. "Why would I _stay_? I'm not keen on adultery."

Anastasia sets down her teacup and saucer to pick up her camera. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't aware that fallen women had rules about these things – Sasha! Sasha, look at me, _malenkaya_!"

Sasha turns its head just as the flash pops. It sneezes and swipes at its eyes with its front paws, grumbling.

"- and, besides," Anastasia continues without missing a beat, "I hardly think it's wise for you to be traveling. In your condition."

The last three words hang in the brightly lit air, echoing and ringing like a challenge. For a long moment the only sound is Sasha's miniature snuffling.

"I hardly think it's wise," Deryn says softly, deadly, "for you to say another word."

Anastasia turns her head and cackles with delight. "You can't threaten me, Miss Sharp; I haven't anything left to lose! My family, my faith, my homeland – I've given all of them up so that I might come here and marry a dull man who can only talk about _you_."

"Why don't you go home, then?"

"I can't. Russia needs this alliance." She blows an imaginary speck of dust off of the camera lens. "Papa needs it. Now that he has no heir, the empire is teetering. Surely you are familiar with the delicacies of a disputed succession."

"Aye, and I'm sorry for the loss of your brother," Deryn says, getting impatient, "but if you expect sympathy –"

Anastasia waves her off. "No, no. Dislike me all you wish; rest assured I'm doing the same to you. But I would like to secure your cooperation."

"With insults?" Deryn asks tartly.

The Grand Duchess smiles, sly and secret. "Well, I had to take your measure."

Fair enough; Deryn's been taking hers, too. What she's seen she hasn't much liked, but then, you can't expect to like the woman who's swooped in to marry your man. Anastasia Nikolaevna just makes it easier by being a barking witch.

Still… "How did you know about my 'condition'?"

"You were thoroughly researched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs before Papa accepted the marriage proposal." Anastasia picks up her tea and takes a sip, her tone and demeanor suggesting such a thing is entirely normal. "The Okhrana still have spies in your household."

Deryn sits back down, hard. Spies? Who? The maid, the cook – not the butler, surely? This is exactly why she told Alek she didn't want to fuss about with staff and servants. Too many eyes, too many ears, and what does she need a _maid_ for anyway?

She bites her tongue on a stronger, more appropriate curse and goes with, "Blisters."

"Mm, yes, quite." Anastasia tilts her head to one side, then the other, as though she's trying to find the best angle for another photograph of Deryn. Diffidently, she says, "It's a shame, you know. People in our positions so seldom work together."

Deryn pulls herself together and glares at the other girl. "Maybe that's because they _dislike_ each other."

Anastasia lifts her teacup, acknowledging the point scored. "Be that as it may, we have a mutual interest."

"Alek," she says, to which Anastasia shakes her head.

"His children."

Despite herself, Deryn puts a hand to her stomach – still reasonably flat. She hasn't had to let any of her clothes out yet, and she doubts Alek has noticed; she doesn't intend to tell him, either. This is all heartbreaking enough as it is. What good would it do, to add to his pain?

"I'm not going to interfere in the succession –" she begins.

"But that's exactly what I want you to do," Anastasia says, cutting her off.

Deryn blinks.

Anastasia glances around, then leans forward and says, low and serious, "What do you know about hemophilia, Miss Sharp?"


	2. Forgive Me

_"__I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade.  
__And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.__"_

_- Catherine the Great_

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Alyosha is dying.

Anastasia takes her turn sitting beside his bed, but even as she reads the prayers, she knows in the core of her being that God has turned His face away from her little brother. This time there will be no last-minute miracle wrought by the scientists. This time no transfusion, no _treatment_, will save Alexei Nikolaevich.

He is fourteen, and he is dying.

At least he is no longer screaming in pain, although the swelling in his leg is greater than ever – black and immense, forcing the knee to bend, distorting the joint grotesquely. He is no longer screaming because, after days of it, he's lost his voice. Now he can only gasp and moan, his eyes sunken and dark, his body sheened with a cold sweat.

"Please, Mama," Anastasia says, barely above a whisper herself. She has lived this nightmare a thousand times since her brother was born, and it never becomes easier. They are all exhausted by Alyosha's agony, drawn tight and brittle under the strain of his suffering. She feels that at any moment she might crack in two. "Please let Dr. Botkin give him morphine."

Mama gives her a sharp, desperate glance. "No. The treatments are working. The bleeding is slowing. There is no need to put that poison into his body."

Anastasia holds her tongue. If Alyosha's bleeding is slowing, it's only because he's running out of blood: all of it is slowly and inexorably pooling in his lower leg. She struggles to remember what triggered this episode. Was he playing too roughly? Riding a bicycle? Climbing on the furniture in the schoolroom? No, no – this time he only stumbled and fell against a chair.

_Hemophilia_. She hates that word, more than any other in any of the many languages that she knows.

"Baby will be fine," Mama says, touching the icons at her neck, the icons at her waist, looking at the icons above his bed. Painted saints with empty eyes. Charles Darwin with his finches. "God will answer our prayers. He will be fine."

"No he won't," Anastasia says, flinging her prayer book aside, too angry to care about the impiety. "Prayers will not fix his life threads, Mama! Not prayers, not scientists, not anything!"

Her mother looks at her, shocked, furious, but before she can do more than draw breath, Anastasia presses a kiss to her brother's feverish forehead – _I love you, please forgive me_ - and runs out of his room.

She is much too old to tear away like a frightened child, but she does. She flees past the servants, the guards, out into the grounds of Tsarkoye Selo, where she walks until she has stopped crying.

Anastasia wraps her arms around herself. Stands still on the pathway. Looks up at the twilight sky.

Perhaps it is not that God has forsaken Alexei. Perhaps it is that God has forsaken the rest of them.

The thought makes her shiver. She prays it isn't true.

"What am I to do?" she asks, small and alone.

The answer comes months later, when Papa draws her aside. He has aged a hundred years for every day since Alexei died, and he looks like a tired, sad old man now, not the gentle, laughing Little Father of her childhood.

She knows what he means to tell her. Four daughters are not equal to one son, but they are all the bargaining power that remains to Russia. Olga has been weeping for days that she will go to England as the bride of Prince Edward.

Papa says, "Forgive me, Nastya, but I must ask something of you."

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"And you are certain?" she asks Dr. Derevenko, fighting to keep her voice from shaking.

"Yes, Anastasia Nikolaevna," the man says. His voice is sad. "The results were very clear."

She is the cleverest of her sisters – not a boast; merely the truth – and for years has also been the most lazy in her lessons. But since Baby's death she has taken a keen interest in the fabricators' work, and she has a thorough understanding of it now. She knows more than her sisters, even Olga, who loves to study everything.

She knows more than Mama and Papa, who treat it as an extension of the Holy Church, a wonderment to be exclaimed over, marveled at, accepted on faith, forever shrouded in mystical light.

Anastasia knows the hard science. She knows what the careful diagrams of the test results mean. What's more, she knows what those _treatments_ forced on Alexei were designed to do, what they failed to do, because the illness cannot be rooted out so easily.

Indeed, it cannot be rooted out at all.

She nods. Takes a breath. "Yes, everything is very clear. Thank you, Doctor," she says. "Please, do not mention this to my father. It would only… it would only upset him further."

"Of course, Your Highness." He bows and leaves her.

The paper confirming her fears trembles in her hand.

She holds a match to it and watches as it burns itself to ash in the dustbin.

Then she reads, again, the file from the Ministry of Internal Affairs – the one she stole from Papa's study. The one that talks in great detail about a certain Miss Deryn Sharp, common-born and bold as brass, the love of Emperor Aleksandar's life.

That young woman is, Anastasia thinks, the key to this.

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Anastasia does not cry.

She does not move, she does not speak, she does nothing at all until her new husband has fallen soundly asleep.

Then she rises – gingerly, because it rather hurts to walk – pulls on her dressing robe, and leaves the imperial bedroom. She doesn't like it, and not only because her marriage bed is a cold and loveless place. Everything here is so excessively _opulent_. She misses the plainly furnished nursery and the simple army cot of her childhood. Vienna is too rich a taste in her mouth.

Although right now all she can taste is blood.

She bit the inside of her cheek, she realizes, somewhere amidst that humiliating disaster called her wedding night. Well. She will forge onward. And Aleksandar did not seem upset when she requested that they sleep in separate rooms from now on.

Perhaps he hopes that Miss Sharp will change her mind about adultery.

There's a small growling mewl by her feet, and she looks down to see Sasha. Silly little bear; she'd rather have brought one of her dogs, but the fabricated animal makes more of a political statement.

She picks it up and holds it close. "Shhh, _malenkaya_," she whispers, and takes it with her.

Anastasia goes to the room she's designated as her salon and tries to make herself comfortable in the chair. She cannot. Her entire body aches. She wonders how much of that is physical, and how much is in her mind; her injuries have always been slow to heal.

The memory hits her abruptly: Alyosha on his bed, dark circles around his eyes, his skin pale, his hair damp with sweat, gasping for their mother with his last shred of strength.

_The Lord has cursed our blood_, she thinks, blinking hard to dispel the tears.

She tucks her feet under her and holds Sasha on her lap. The bear's warmth is soothing, and she strokes its soft fur absently as she sits in the darkened room and thinks.

In the morning she will be examined by the court physicians; they will pronounce the marriage consummated, and Austria-Hungary will be irrevocably bound to Russia. Both nations stabilized with one small sacrifice on her part.

And Austria secured with one, much larger, sacrifice on someone else's part.

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova is a tsar's daughter, descended from three hundred years of autocrats. She can be as cold as the Russian winter when she must. Now she must.

She puts her mind on the future.

Will this work?

God have mercy if it doesn't.

God forgive her if it does.

"Seven months, Alyosha," she says softly, her fingers tightening in Sasha's fur. "Seven months."


	3. Circumstances

**Note:** Good golly, it's been a while since I updated this! I apologize – real life and my other fics got in the way. But I'm back on track now!

The quote towards the end is from Benjamin Franklin, and it's one of my all-time faves.

Finally, thanks go to Beboots for the emergency beta. :D

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_"There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war.__  
__Everything depends on circumstances."_

_- Leon Trotsky_

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"You realize that this is treason."

Count Volger's voice cuts through the fog and what Alek realizes, with a small jolt, is that he's almost fallen asleep in his chair. He carefully eases himself further upright, one hand going protectively towards his shoulder, and meets his prime minister's eyes across the dimly-lit room.

Alek has more important things to worry about now, and he does not particularly want to spar tonight… but it seems he has no choice.

"_L'état, c'est moi_," he says tiredly, keeping his voice low. "I alone decide what is and is not treason."

Volger harrumphs. "You are imitating the follies of other royal houses, I see, now that you have exhausted those of your own. I trust you remember what _became_ of the Bourbons, in addition to their _bon mots_?"

"It will be you they guillotine first, Count," Alek says. Despite everything, his mouth twitches up into a smile. "I'm notoriously poor at deception, while this plot bears all of your clever fingerprints."

The count looks faintly disgusted and faintly bored all at once. "A plot? Bah. It's a farce. The work of two hysterical women."

Neither Deryn nor Anastasia have seemed particularly hysterical at any point in the last seven months. Scheming (in Anastasia's case) and devastated (in Deryn's) – but not hysterical. Indeed, it takes a cool head to organize something this elaborate. Alek could wish his generals were so capable.

"You are underestimating those two women." Alek thinks of what Deryn has sworn to do, and pain lances through his chest, sudden and astonishingly physical.

_How can you?_ he'd asked when she first told him; _how can I not?_ she'd answered.

God's wounds. He doesn't deserve such a sacrifice. He stands in awe of her even as he despairs.

Alek takes a breath full of ashes and adds, "Rather severely."

Volger says nothing for a long moment, choosing instead to communicate his disapproval through his scowl. A clock ticks, near and distant all at once, and there is a susurrus of voices from the adjoining room; Alek neglected to close the door earlier. He hears Deryn speaking, the words too quiet to be understood. Somewhat louder, Anastasia commands a servant to bring tea.

Or at least that's what Alek believes she's saying. Anastasia dismissed the regular servants at Konopischt seven months ago and installed her own Russian servants, none of whom speak a word of German.

"My apologies," Volger says finally says, voice dry. "I cannot imagine what possessed me, to belittle the contributions of your common-born mistress and your mad Russian bride."

Old anger stirs – embers, never quite extinguished, fanning up again. "We might have avoided this altogether," Alek says, "if it wasn't for _your_ contributions."

"I was thinking only of your well-being," Volger says. "As I have always done."

Alek keeps his voice quiet, but is unable to hide the bitterness: "Yes, I remember having this discussion a mere four years ago."

Smoothly, Volger says, "The empire would not have survived, Your Majesty. You would have had nothing."

"I would have had _her_."

His prime minister does not argue, but looks at him as if he is a fool.

"I asked for your help," Alek says. With the old wound resurrected, he finds himself reluctant to let it go. "I _begged_ for your help, Volger. A word from you would have tipped the balance. And you refused."

"Ah," says Volger. His next words are a curious mixture of pity, sadness, and scorn. "So this is your revenge."

The small, solid weight on Alek's chest stirs, making a mewling sound. He instinctively puts a hand on the newborn infant's back.

"No," he says softly. "This is my son."

Volger is motionless for a moment. Then he stands, crosses to the door, shuts it - quietly but firmly - and stalks to stand in front of Alek's chair. Alek considers rising, to show that he is not to be intimidated, but decides that he doesn't feel like it; he'd rather sit in a comfortable chair and hold his son. And remaining seated has shades of meaning all its own.

"I have been patient," Volger says. Lecturing. "I have helped you carry off this _farce_ because that foolish Russian girl has left the empire with no other option – and because I thought that perhaps you would come to see reason. But you cannot mean to _actually_ pretend that a bastard is the crown prince."

The fury that Alek feels is instant, overwhelming in its depth, and he closes his eyes against the white-hot floodtide. This child in his arms is his son. _His son_. Deryn's son. The last and best evidence that yes, the two of them, together – that was real. And good.

_Blood of my blood and bone of my bone_, she had murmured over their baby when he was minutes old, still sticky and squalling; it's lovely and it's true and Alek would very much like to strangle his prime minister, his old fencing tutor, his old mentor, for suggesting that _his son_ is not perfect in every way.

He fights down the anger. It will do no good, and it's rather difficult to murder someone while you're holding a baby.

"What would you have me do?" he asks sharply. "Shove Anastasia into the path of an anarchist's bullet? Allow her to be poisoned? I could remarry then – this time, perhaps, to someone who doesn't have the life threads for an incurable illness."

"No," Volger says, unimpressed. "I would have you pack your bastard off to Scotland with its mother, announce to the world that the empress' promised child was stillborn, and find a suitable cousin to appoint as heir."

Alek looks at his old fencing tutor and wonders, not for the first time, at the unflinching steel of the man's heart. "I can't."

Volger gives him a disdainful look. "Because your women won't allow you."

"Because it would kill me!" he says, too loudly, too angrily. The baby coughs and hiccups into a fussing sort of cry. Alek presses a kiss to the soft, downy head beneath its little embroidered cap. Takes several deep breaths until he can speak normally again. "It has killed half of me to lose Deryn. I cannot – I cannot lose my son, Volger. Damn the politics of it; I cannot make that sacrifice for Austria - or anything. I _will_ not."

Volger says nothing.

"So Maximilian will be the crown prince, regardless of his mother." Alek's anger drains away, leaving only exhaustion and a terrible ache in his soul. He's too tired and sick at heart to wade through this again. "God forgive us all."

Face impassive, Volger regards him silently for a long moment. Then he gives a deep, formal bow. Straightens. "While I cannot approve of what you've decided, the reason behind the decision itself is… admirable. I had wondered, four years ago, where you would draw the line. I should have known it would be here. I believe your father would be proud."

Maximilian stirs beneath his swaddling, and Alek resettles the baby in his arms. He makes no reply to Volger – what could he possibly begin to say?

_"L'état, c'est vous, _Aleksandar. Try to remember that." Volger studies him for a moment longer, then sighs. Suddenly he looks every year of his age and more. "It is to be regretted, perhaps, that you have needed to learn such lessons at all."_  
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Alek finds himself swallowing back tears. God's wounds, he really is overtired. "Indeed. It is."

"I will return to Vienna," Volger says, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt and jacket, "and announce the happy event. Exactly as you have asked me to do."

"Thank you, Count," Alek says. He stands, holding his son safely close, and puts out a hand for the man to shake. "Your lessons have always been worthwhile, in the end – though never comfortable in the moment."

Volger harrumphs again, but shakes hands, and Alek feels a small measure of relief. He could not have borne the loss of… everything that he has lost… _and_ his mentor.

The door to the adjoining bedroom opens again. Expecting Dr. Botkin, Alek turns to instead see the empress consort of Austria-Hungary.

"Why is this door shut?" Anastasia says crossly, then spots Volger. "Oh. You."

He bows, stiff with dislike. "Your Majesty. You look very well for someone who has been so recently delivered of a crown prince. He appears to be a large and healthy child, considering his early arrival. Two months too soon, is it?"

Anastasia draws herself up and puts the full chill of a Russian winter into her words: "Go away, _Ministerpräsident_, before you make the baby sick."

Volger bows again, flicks a glance at Alek, and disappears.

Anastasia wrinkles her nose and says, "Pure dead obnoxious, that one," in a surprisingly good imitation of Deryn's accent. Then she puts her hands on her hips and turns to Alek. "That looks like it was a fearsome encounter. Are you all right, my darling husband?"

"No," he says shortly. "I will never be all right."

She sighs and waves dismissively. "So melodramatic. Of course you will. Eventually you may even be happy… if you _can_ be happy. Sometimes I rather doubt that."

He doesn't dignify that idiocy with a response. Instead, as she coos at the baby, obviously enchanted, he asks, "What shall we tell him?"

She tsks, irritated. "Nothing, _darling_. 'Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead' – we're playing it dangerous as it is, hmm? No. Just hold your tongue and enjoy your victory in silence."

"This is hardly a victory," he says, frowning, although she has a point. There's a part of Alek that takes a grim delight in knowing that the future of the House of Hapsburg will be forever tainted by the blood of a thoroughly, perfectly, brilliantly common woman.

There is another part that stands back and wonders at the revolutionary he's become. But perhaps that's his own tainted bloodline showing through; no _real_ Hapsburg would have agreed to this scheme.

"Now stop being so selfish," Anastasia says. "Get back in there and let her hold Max. She won't have another chance like this for ages, and you will."

Alek finds himself giving Anastasia a lopsided smile. It's possibly the first thing she's said in the seven months of their marriage that sounds human. Perhaps the lifetime ahead will not be as painful as he's feared – although it will undoubtedly be lonely. "As you command, Your Majesty."

"Bah," Anastasia says, succinct, this time mimicking Volger. She stands aside in the doorway to let him pass, then shoos the servants out.

Deryn is sitting up in the bed, surrounded by pillows and thick blankets, holding a steaming cup of tea in both hands. She looks exhausted, elated, bewildered, and heartbroken.

Exactly the way he feels, then.

He sits beside her and gently, carefully, trades her the teacup for their son. His arms miss the weight immediately, but he tells himself to listen to his wife and not be selfish. Deryn will be disappearing back to Glasgow; Max will be staying right here.

"There's my bonnie wee prince," she says, brushing a finger across Maximilian's soft cheek. His dark blue eyes roll open and he stares at her, unfocused, sleepy.

Her smile is fragile and tear-stained.

"I'm sorry," Alek says quietly, putting an arm around her shoulders and gathering her close. "I am so sorry, Deryn."

"No," she murmurs, staring intently at their son. "It's not you who needs to make things right. Just promise me-" her breath catches "-I can come visit before he starts walking?"

That's a dizzying thought – their son will one day walk, and speak, and have adventures of his own. The enormity of what they're doing hits him afresh, and Alek takes a breath. "God's wounds, yes, of course. As often as you can."

As often as she can without raising suspicion, anyway. It's just fortunate that fair hair and blue eyes run in Anastasia's family, as Max seems to have both.

"Aye, I'd better, or you'll have him stuffed so full of manners and tutors that he'll forget how to have fun," she says, with a hint of her usual spark.

Alek smiles, then leans forward and kisses her. Gently, carefully. Rests his forehead against hers. The baby drowses in between them, warm and solid.

He breathes in the scent of this small circle.

For these few moments, they are a family, and it is right and true.

There's a pop and a flash of bright light at the foot of the bed.

Max screws up his face and begins a thin, fretful cry.

"Sodding hell," Deryn says, exasperated, shifting the baby, attempting to shush him into calm again. "What're you trying to do here, Nastya?"

Alek shoots a glare at Anastasia. "That is hardly going to help us keep the secret."

"Oh, I know," Anastasia says, half-turning her face, smiling slyly behind her camera, "but I couldn't resist. Emperor, prince, adulteress... You make such a charming trinity."

And she takes another photograph.


	4. Whatever Sorrows

_"Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven,_  
_some radiant joy will gaily flash past."  
_

_- Nikolai Gogol_

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"Deryn, love!" her ma calls out. "The post's arrived; there's a package for you!"

Deryn has been in the back garden, sitting in the sun and working on designs for the balloon she's going to make. But at her mother's announcement she abandons her sketchbook and hurries inside, heart racing.

Four months tomorrow. The package has to be what she thinks it is.

"Is it going well?" Ma asks, standing in front of the side table in the foyer and sorting through the post. A large brown paper envelope rests on the table next to her ma's stack of letters. "Your balloon?"

"Aye," Deryn says impatiently. Volger had advised her, before she'd left Austria-Hungary, that she was the only imperial mistress in history to take her pension in the form of aeronautical equipment. She'd advised Volger that he could get stuffed.

She tries now to reach around her ma to get at the package. "Where's it from, did you see?"

"Prague," her ma says, but before the word's out of her mouth, Deryn has the brown paper envelope and is examining it for herself. There's some heft to it. "Is it from your Alek?"

The stamps and seals have an official look to them, but not a royal one. On the back, just like Nastya said there'd be, are three letters: AAM.

Alek, Anastasia, Max.

"Near enough," Deryn says around the lump in her throat. Blisters. She coughs and takes the envelope into the parlor to sit at the table, where the light is good and she'll have room to spread everything out.

Ma sticks her head in. "Maybe some tea?"

"Aye, thanks," Deryn says. Being fussed over by her ma is unavoidable; she can't say that she hasn't needed it, though. There were days, at first, when she could barely drag her bum out of bed. Not very soldierly – but then, there aren't many soldiers with her type of wound.

She waits until her ma has gone on before she slits the heavy paper open and pulls out what's inside.

A letter. A smaller envelope, stuffed full.

Her pulse quickens, but she sets the smaller envelope aside and unfolds the letter.

_My dear sister –_

_A few photographs of our precious sweet darling. He is greatly accomplished now: he can turn himself over and babble fluently in three languages. And such a charmer! – everyone is wrapped around his finger, including that dismal, awful, bothersome old man – who dandles our darling on his knee at every visit._

_You__ must visit soon – __certain people__ are becoming unbearably dull without your company. And make it a surprise! Of course I will know to expect you but I should love to see the look on __his__ face! It will be wonderfully funny. I will have my camera ready._

_Your very dearest sister in Christ,_

_A_

Visiting. Bloody hell.

She wants to – has wanted to since the moment she left Konopischt. That was the most difficult part: leaving. Once she'd held her son, heard his squalls and whimpers, seen his fingers flex and spread like bittie wee starfishes, felt the soft skin on his cheek and looked into the blue of his old man's eyes…

She'd had to leave. But it had nearly killed her.

Deryn had arrived in Glasgow numb and gray with misery, exhausted for no reason, and fighting the urge to turn around and go back to Austria-Hungary. Snatch up her son. Run off with him, and to hell with the empire.

Of course she hadn't. She'd stayed where she was, like they'd planned, and done her best to start a new life without the two people she loves most. Soldier on, Middy Sharp.

It hasn't worked, not really. All the blueprints and airflow diagrams in the world can't take her mind off of Max. He's always there, hovering in the edge of her attention, tugging at her, reminding her that there's a piece missing.

It's a sodding large piece.

It'll never be hers again.

She'd told Nastya once that she could take losing Alek, and she could take losing the air, but not losing both at the same time. She should've known that she couldn't take losing her son _at all_.

She wonders, for the thousandth time, if he looks more like Alek or her, or if it's still too early to tell.

Well, here's her chance to know.

Deryn draws a breath, wipes her hands on her trousers, and moves on to the best and most painful thing: the photographs.

Her fingers tremble, tearing the envelope open.

The photographs are in a neat stack, and tied together with a purplish ribbon that smells strongly of Nastya's perfume. Her knotwork is terrible, and for a moment Deryn is too indignant to be nervous or heartbroken. She'd spent _hours_ teaching Nastya those knots!

And then the ribbon comes undone and falls away, and the photographs are in her hands.

The first one shows Alek standing in a room – a nursery, it looks like – smiling down at Max in his arms.

The next one shows Max lying on his back, his little hands and feet a blur as he kicks and waves, his face with its wide, delighted smile likewise blurred by movement.

The third one shows her son asleep.

The photographs after that are a squick difficult to see, since she's crying great, silent tears, one hand pressed hard against the memory of Max in her belly, and the other pressed against her mouth.

She's carried a terrible weight on her heart ever since she left Konopischt, but right now, she thinks it may finally crack her in two. _Seeing_ what she's missed – it's too wonderful, it's too horrid. It's too sodding much.

"Deryn?" her ma says behind her. "Are you all right, love?"

She shakes her head, trying to pull herself together. Knowing she can't.

Her ma sets a teacup and saucer on the table beside the photographs, then wraps one arm around Deryn's shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of her head as if she were still a baby herself. Deryn leans into her, still fighting to stop the tears.

Ma touches the corner of one photograph. Half of that picture is obscured by Max's chubby hand, reaching for the camera. The other half is his bright, curious face.

Alek. He looks so much like Alek.

"He's a bonny lad," her ma says after a long while. Gently. No disapproval, no censure.

"Aye," Deryn says, barely a breath, hiccupping it. She can't look anymore; she can't tear her eyes away. Her son. Her beautiful, brilliant son.

_You must visit soon._

But how can she see Max and Alek again, knowing they belong to the empire, and never to her? She fears it'll take a strength she simply doesn't have. Blisters, if a pack of photographs can reduce her to blubbering like a ninny, what will the real thing do?

Deryn wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and picks up the photograph of Alek holding Max in the nursery. "He takes after his da," she says.

Her ma gives her another kiss on the head, then lets go of her to lay out the photographs, one by one, in a neat grid. Deryn holds on to the one she's got. Longing wraps its talons around her and squeezes so hard that it burns.

_You must visit soon._

_Well_, she thinks, _it can't get any worse than it is_.

Her ma says, briskly, "You'll be wanting to buy a proper album for these, I should think."

"Aye," Deryn says, swiping her shirtsleeve across her nose. She twists and gives her ma a watery smile. "And an airship ticket for Vienna."

Ma looks startled. "Oh, aye?"

She sets the photograph down with the others. "It's time I visited."

Her ma stand motionless for a moment before she smiles. "Drink your tea, love, and then I'll help you pack."

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**Note:** Royal mistresses did actually (though not always) get pensions. Charles II of England provided two of his aristocratic mistresses with about £40,000 a year apiece. (Common-born Nell Gwynn, on the other hand? Only £4,000.)

This chapter is a bit shorter than I'd like – and a _lot_ shorter than an 11 month update gap would have you anticipate – but Deryn just doesn't angst very well. We'll get more of that soon anyway, from _certain people_. :)


	5. Only Forgiven

**Note:** Let this horrific 14-month gap in updates serve as a lesson to you all: don't start posting a story when you don't know how it ends. Many thanks to Esoteric24 for the beta. ;)

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_"__Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven."_

_- Igor Stravinsky_

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"Strange, isn't it?"

Anastasia starts; she wasn't expecting her sister to return for another hour yet. Nevertheless, she puts on a sly half-grin as she turns, hiding the letter in the folds of her skirt. "Mm. We'll have ever so much space now, we shan't know how to fill it."

Olga laughs and comes further into the room she's always shared with Tatiana. Tatya's side is intact, but Olga's half has been quite dismantled. Photographs, paintings, letters, ribbons, perfume, poetry books, rocks from the beach at Livadia – childhood relics, boxed up and whisked away, ready to be shipped to her new home in Britain. The camp bed remains, as does the great mass of icons above it.

"_They_ shan't know," her oldest sister corrects. "_You_ are also leaving, my Nastya."

The thought stabs into her stomach, but she tosses her hair and says airily, "Oh, not for months yet. Time enough to rearrange the furniture."

That earns an imperial scoff from Olga, who sits on her bed and begins unfastening the wimple of her nurse's uniform.

Anastasia leans back and peers through the door that connects the Big Pair's room to the one she shares with Marie. No one about. Brilliant. Except… it would have been much easier to leave the letter and be finished with it. "How are the soldiers?" she asks, deliberately stalling and cursing herself for that.

Olga sighs, her lovely face settling into sad lines. She finishes removing her wimple and holds it in her lap, smoothing the white cloth. "They organized a farewell celebration for me today. I nearly cried. Those poor brave boys."

Anastasia smirks. Olga is forever falling in love with soldiers. Hopeless romances, all of them, from Pavel to Mitya and every poor, brave boy since: no common soldier can marry an Imperial Grand Duchess. Certifying as a war nurse, in addition to aiding Russia, gave Olga infinitely more opportunities to trade meaningful glances and quiet, star-crossed sighs.

Mama quit the hospital as soon as peace was declared, but Olga and Tatiana go several times a week. Olga's latest is a lieutenant, or perhaps it's a major. Anastasia has quite forgot his name.

"I'm certain they will miss your tender care," she says, waggling her eyebrows.

It's meant as a jest, but Olga stiffens, her hands clenching around the wimple. "Don't be cruel!" she says fiercely, eyes blazing. "You haven't any idea –!"

"No," Anastasia says. She lets the bitterness show: "I suppose I never will, either."

Olga glares at her for another moment, then subsides. She presses her hands to her face. Smoothes her pinned-up hair. Looks at the icons still hanging above her bed. Looks at Anastasia.

"How are you coming in your lessons?" she asks, tired now. They both have been deluged in lessons about their new religions; Olga is to become an Anglican, and Anastasia, a Catholic. For Anastasia, there is also the _utter delight _of instruction in her new language. English, Russian, and French will only take her so far in a German-speaking court.

"Well enough." Anastasia fingers the letter. It would be comical, how much time she now spends with her nose in a book – she, the champion shirker! – except there is nothing amusing in her current situation. "Father Drechsler says I'll be perfectly ready for confirmation. And," she adds, "Herr Oberst is elated with my accent."

She does not mention her studies of life threads and wayward Scots girls.

"I want to hear," Olga says, forcing a smile. "Say something."

"_Auf Wiedersehen, meine Schwester_."

Olga's smile fades. She regards Anastasia in all seriousness. "You know why we must do this," she says, reminding and rebuking simultaneously.

Anastasia sits on Tatya's bed, directly across from Olga. "Of course I do. My dear fiancé's family are past masters at the game. _Tu felix Austria, nube_ – ha!"

"Russia will be safe from attack by any of the Clanker nations," her eldest sister says, primly echoing the lesson for a nonexistent tutor, "while Papa secures his throne with the weight of the British Empire."

Anastasia leans back on her hands. "It's a clever scheme."

Olga gives her a look. "Nastya."

"It is," she says. "Frightfully cruel, but clever."

Olga's patience has never been strong; these days it is as brittle as ice in spring. "That's a childish thing to say!"

Anastasia sticks her tongue out. Olga flings the wimple at her. She ducks sideways, though it isn't necessary, as the cloth falls short. She snatches it from the floor and flings it back. "Childish, is it!"

Olga stands with a huff, throwing the wimple onto the bed behind her. "I don't want to quarrel with you!" she exclaims, visibly torn between anger and distress. "_Shvybzik_! Who knows when I shall see you again, after I leave!"

"At least you shall have Mama's family with you," Anastasia says, standing as well. She puts her hands on her hips, then bites her lip and crosses her arms over her chest instead. "I won't – I won't have anyone."

Just a husband who's madly in love with someone else, and a plan that might destroy two empires.

Olga makes a pained noise and sweeps her into a hug, resting her chin atop Anastasia's head like a mother hen tucking its young beneath one wing. "I'll visit," she says fervently. "As soon as I am able, as often as I am able. Oh, Nastya, you know this isn't what any of us wanted."

Anastasia nods against her sister's collarbone. The letter is lying abandoned on Tatya's bed, but its contents are seared into her heart. "Olga. Will you make me another promise?"

Olga stiffens slightly; her voice is wary. "What is it?"

Anastasia pulls away, though she remains within the circle of Olga's arms. "Don't give him children."

This time the noise is one of dismay. Impatience. _You are still acting like a child_, it says. _When will you grow up, Little One?_ As though Olga hadn't stormed and raged for weeks when Papa announced she would go to Britain.

Olga frowns prettily. "David is the _crown prince_. There isn't any reason to marry _except_ to provide him an heir."

Anastasia isn't pretty when she frowns. Flatly, she says, "And our life threads carry hemophilia."

"Nastya –"

She steps back from her sister. "It's a poison."

Olga closes her eyes for several heartbeats. They are both remembering Baby, crying in pain for hours on end, too exhausted by his agony to rest. "I know what it is," she says, almost inaudible.

Desperation claws at Anastasia's chest, hot and overwhelming. "_Promise me_, Olishka."

Her eldest sister looks at her, eyes bright with unshed tears, searching for something. Then she turns her face away.

Even before she speaks, Anastasia knows the words that are coming.

"There are no laws there," Olga says quietly, "to keep daughters from the throne."

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It's cold in the chapel. Anastasia's breath shows white, temporarily clouding her view of the crucifix beyond the altar. She draws the edges of her dressing gown's sleeves over her fingers and clasps her hands in her lap, trying to keep what warmth she might.

There are prayers she could be saying, ought to be saying, but her mind has gone blank.

No. If only her mind was blank. The truth is, her mind has fixated on the worst moment of her life. When she looks through the fog of her breath, she does not see her Lord and Savior on the cross. She sees her brother –

- dear Aloysha -

_Baby_.

She sees him lying in his bed, his skin so horribly pale, dark smudges sinking his eyes, but his face at last peaceful. Gone – at last – to a place where pain cannot find him. Martyred.

Her fingers tighten, and the telegraph paper crinkles.

Something hot traces down her face.

There's a sound behind her – not the ordinary creaks of nighttime Konopischt, and far too large to belong to vermin. Rodents aren't at all intimidated by emperors.

"Anastasia?"

She sniffs and reaches up with one hand to discreetly wipe away the tear. She never cries. She loathes crying. "I was just thinking of you," she says to the intruder.

Deryn comes into the chapel, boots scuffing on the stone floor. She's wearing a dressing gown, too, and beneath that, men's pyjama pants and a nightshirt. It ought to look ridiculous. Instead, Anastasia finds herself wishing she had the freedom to imitate her.

"Of me? Not bloody likely," Deryn says.

"Well," Anastasia says, "I suppose you would make for a very large mouse."

Deryn snorts: a pale cloud of disdain. She nods at the altar and lowers herself to the pew beside Anastasia. Lowers, where a few months before she would have thumped down without thinking twice.

Deryn's tall, slender frame has proven unexpectedly good at disguising pregnancy as well as gender. Only recently, as they come to the end, has she begun to show. For her part, Anastasia's false and quite prominent belly has been achieved via clever padding and an unabashed love of chocolate.

Paper crinkles in her hands again, and Anastasia forces herself to keep the mask in place. "What are you doing awake?"

The other girl shrugs and rests a fond hand on her rounded abdomen. "The wee devil decided kicking me in the liver was more fun than sleeping."

Anastasia lets herself look, and imagine what it would be like… but no. An impossible dream, and one best locked away again.

"I thought if I was to be awake at sodding three o'clock in the morning, I might as well see what was left in the kitchen." Deryn fishes around in her dressing-gown pocket and produces a cloth napkin. Unfolded, it reveals a large piece of pastry. "D'you want some?"

Anastasia's stomach curls unpleasantly. "No, thank you."

Deryn shrugs again and takes a bite. "Why are _you_ awake?"

Why, indeed.

Anastasia plays with the slip of paper for a long moment, staring at the crucifix. "You're not Catholic."

Deryn speaks with her mouth full: "Not a whit."

Another reason why Aleksandar, descended of Holy Roman Emperors, had faced opposition to the match. Common, foreign, Darwinist, Protestant. After all of that, the trousers and swearing hardly mattered.

Anastasia mimics the other girl's accent: "Church of Scotland, aye?"

A careless swallow. "Aye, the Kirk. But I haven't been in ages."

"Mama was Lutheran. She had to convert to marry Papa." Anastasia draws a breath. "She told me it was no sin to take on my husband's faith. And as I hadn't any choice in the matter, I did."

Deryn lays the empty napkin aside and regards her – with sympathy.

Anastasia forces her fingers to open around the crumpled telegraph. Offers it up for the other girl to see.

Deryn takes the scrap of paper and holds it close to her face in the dim chapel light. The candles are failing to illuminate so many things tonight.

She frowns. "This is from London. Someone's ill?"

Anastasia closes her eyes. "Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales."

Olga Nikolaevna.

"Your sister?" Deryn's surprise is audible. "She's on a sightseeing holiday. Balmoral Castle?"

Anastasia shakes her head. Her voice is strange to her own ears: "She has a fever – an infection, really. The doctors called it 'septicemia'. None of the medicines have worked. By now…"

The unfinished thought hangs in the chapel, dark and heavy as the angel of death.

"Mama is hysterical," Anastasia says, still flat. She can feel something immense cracking and shifting around her, inside her, like an ice flow breaking up when it's drifted too far south. "She's on her way to Britain this instant."

Deryn is staring at her. "Barking spiders."

"It's for the best, I suppose," Anastasia says, dropping her eyes to her lap. "Now Mama will be in Britain until this –" she gestures at Deryn's abdomen "- is well over. And Olga… Olga will be…"

And she can no longer hold back the tears. They come in a great, ragged flood that doubles her over, crying as she has not cried in years.

By St. Andrew, she _loathes_ crying.

She presses her hands over her eyes, trying to force a stop to it, but Deryn chooses that moment to lay a hand on her shoulder, hesitant and then more firm.

"It's all right, then," she murmurs. "Have a good cry."

The madness of it – of this girl comforting her, when in another month Anastasia will be stealing her child and sending her into exile – stabs a bright needle of shame into her aching heart. This is a mercy that Anastasia does not deserve.

She finds that this time, she cannot fight the tears down.

Deryn continues to sit beside her, rubbing warm circles on her back and murmuring Scottish nonsense. She would, Anastasia thinks, be a brilliant mother.

And what a horror that Deryn will never be any sort of mother at all.

Between one thing and another, it's a long eternity before Anastasia pulls herself together, though there shall be no salvaging of her dignity. She wipes at her damp cheeks and sniffs hard, several times, wishing she'd thought to bring a handkerchief.

"Here," Deryn says. She holds out the cloth napkin. It's full of pastry crumbs and a sticky smear of what might be jam.

"Thank you," Anastasia says, voice small and unsteady and terribly un-imperial. She wipes her face, blows her nose, folds the napkin, and lays it on the wooden pew beside her.

Deryn shifts positions, awkwardly stretching her boots out as far as the baby and the pews will allow. "Blisters, it's no trouble. I hate crying."

"Something else we have in common, I suppose."

The other girl lifts an eyebrow.

Anastasia matches the expression, though her red, tear-swollen face undoubtedly falls short. "Stubbornness being the chief similarity."

"True enough." Deryn looks up at the painted ceiling and exhales in a white puff. "We're both terrible at doing what our mothers think we ought to."

Anastasia studies her posture and slouches down, matching it. It's not uncomfortable. "How are you at climbing trees?"

One hand smoothes over that curving abdomen. "I _was_ aces at it."

"Mm. So was I." Deryn's eyebrow goes up again, this time in surprise, and Anastasia manages a small smile. "Years ago, of course. I couldn't do it now. Whenever my tutors made me cross, or gave me too much work, up I went…! Then I would refuse to climb down until someone fetched Papa. _'Nastya, come down this instant!_' Order of the czar only. It was a silly game."

The tutors had not appreciated it, which made it even more delightful.

"My da taught me," Deryn says. She glances at the altar, then returns her attention to the ceiling. Her face is sad; not dramatically so, but quietly. An old wound, scarred, that still pains her when the weather turns.

A new wound gapes wide and ragged in Anastasia's chest. For a moment, reminded of the injury, she struggles to breathe around it. "I wish Papa were here now. I wish –"

_I wish I'd never left Russia._

_I wish Aloysha was alive; I wish Olishka was whole and well._

_I wish all of our sins could be forgiven._

_Amen._

Deryn says nothing, but it isn't necessary. They sit in silence for a great while. If Anastasia closes her eyes, she can almost imagine herself back in the Alexander Palace, sitting in the window with Mashka on a cold winter night.

It will never be like that in the future. She sees that clearly now. Her childhood was an fairy enchantment, shattered by the realities of the world. Geography and politics have divided the four of them, O-T-M-A, who were once inseparable, and each step on their individual roads only takes them farther apart. They cannot draw together again, except in God's holy kingdom.

"I tried to make her promise," Anastasia says, breaking the silence. "I had hoped I could make her swear against trying for children. She refused, and I thought, _oh, how monstrous you are, condemning your children and grandchildren. _But the path I've come down – Deryn, forgive me, please, if such a thing is possible. I should not have asked you. I should never have asked –"

The other girl is shaking her head. "D'you know what would become of him, back in Glasgow? Ma would never turn us out, but the sods not spitting on me for being a whore would be spitting on him for being a bastard – as if he had any help in it. It'd be a fight, every day. No. I won't have him go through that, if I can have him be a prince instead."

"He _is_ a prince." Deryn frowns, and Anastasia flushes. It sounds positively daft when she says it aloud: "You see – I've always thought – that you and Aleksandar were married long ago. In the eyes of Our Lord at least."

"Oh," Deryn says, taken aback. Then she smirks. "I reckon that makes you the other woman, then, aye?"

Anastasia thinks of her disastrous wedding night and pulls a face. "And quite a disappointing mistress I am, too."

Deryn starts suddenly, and curses – completely oblivious to the onlooking Christ. Her hands go to her stomach. "At it again, the wee fiend. Why aren't you sleeping in there? Heard us talking about you?"

"I expect he's going to be just as much trouble as his mother."

Deryn grins, though it fades. "Aye, or his da."

Anastasia laces her hands over her own stomach. "Both, perhaps."

Deryn jumps again, and laughs at herself. She reaches over and grabs Anastasia's hand, bringing it to the curve of her abdomen. "He's showing off. Here, have a feel."

Outside of some dimly-remembered moments when Mama was carrying Aloysha, Anastasia has never had the fortune – if one might call it that – to press her hand to a pregnant woman's belly. She finds it uncomfortably intimate.

And then the baby kicks.

Anastasia makes a small noise of surprise and nearly jerks her hand away. She doesn't, and the baby kicks several more times in quick succession. "Goodness," she says, smiling like a fool. "Quite the hooligan."

Deryn smirks. "Maybe he's Russian after all, then."

Anastasia laughs. For some reason, it brings back the tears – easy tears this time, gentle and soft. She wipes them away and gives Deryn a watery smile. "I don't know if we can be friends. But… do you think… we could be sisters?"

Deryn looks at her for a long while, then grabs her hand again and squeezes. "Aye," she says firmly, and that simple word has all the force of a holy vow.

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"You're attending the opera tonight," Anastasia informs her husband over tea.

Aleksandar, caught mid-sip, grimaces before he swallows and sets his teacup down. Their afternoon tea is strictly family: no servants, no guests. A small ritual which gives them a chance to relax – and scheme. He gives her a dark look across the small table. "I hadn't forgot."

Anastasia ignores him in favor of feeding Sasha a bit of dried meat. The fabricated miniature bear plumps down on its hindquarters and begins to chew noisily. Silly thing. "It's _Götterdämmerung_. The Court Opera always does a marvelous job with Wagner, don't you think?"

"It's not their performance that I object to," Aleksandar says drily. "Rather, it's the one that _I _shall be giving."

"Rita is a lovely girl," Anastasia says. She wipes her fingers on the skirt of her dress and picks up her camera. Four-month-old Maksim, asleep in his bassinet, looks as though he's dreaming of something grand, and she has the sudden urge to snap a photograph for his mother.

She's taken so many photographs of the dear sweet boy. It isn't a trouble; she loves to watch him, loves when he smiles at her, loves when he drools all over her shoulder and gums her fingers. He's brilliant. She could happily pass an entire day doing nothing more than dandling him on her knee.

_Thou shalt not covet_ – but she does. Oh, she does. The greatest difficulty, when it comes to Crown Prince Maximilian, Archduke of Austria-Este, is remembering that he belongs to another. That her joy comes from someone else's pain.

Half the court finds her preoccupation with the prince to be vulgar, common, beneath an empress – and the other half finds it a mark of motherly virtue and commends her for it. The newspapers are equally divided, though everyone seems to agree that she did the right thing in hiring a wet nurse.

Except Mama, of course. Mama has scolded her in every letter. At length.

"I don't know why you dislike her company," she adds as she adjusts the camera's aperture.

Aleksandar arches an eyebrow, a small smirk playing at the edges of his mouth. "I can't imagine why, either."

"Bah," she says, echoing Volger. The whir and click of the lens doesn't cause Maksim to stir at all. "Rest assured, she's playing a role as well."

Miss Rita Dahl, Viennese stage actress and determined gold-digger, believes her role is that of the emperor's darling – the bright, glittering star who's caught his attention, who is too beautiful to resist, who need only flutter her eyelashes to bend the most powerful man in Austria-Hungary to her will.

Little fool.

Anastasia picked the girl out herself. She's enjoyed every moment since.

Aleksandar, however, has not.

"Comforting," he says now. "I should hate to think she bears actual affection for me."

Anastasia grins at him sidelong. "So _tart _today, Your Majesty."

His stern look gives way to a half-smile. He chuckles and picks up his tea again, returning his attention to the sheaf of official papers by his plate, and Anastasia takes his picture before he can notice.

He looks tired, she thinks. He adores Maksim, delights in him as she does, but there's been sadness etched around his eyes since the night of the prince's birth. Pretending to be besotted with Rita has been a burden, not a distraction, and Anastasia suspects he's only keeping up the charade to humor his Empress Consort. Or to humor the viper pit of the court.

After all, it's either a publically loveless marriage, or share the same bed – and neither of them have any desire for the latter.

And yet…

It isn't a _terrible_ marriage. Far better than she'd hoped, in fact. Aleksandar is unfailingly respectful to his wife, giving Anastasia her every due and insisting that the members of his court follow suit when they balk at honoring a Russian. The two of them have similar ideas about raising an Imperial Crown Prince who isn't spoiled beyond measure, and the importance of establishing a private family life, isolated from the outside world. They both dislike the pomp and formality of state occasions. They both enjoy films more than opera and theater, and he has promised to teach her how to pilot a walker.

And they both labor under the living ghost of Deryn Sharp.

Theirs is an odd friendship, to be sure, but it's real and Anastasia treasures it.

"It won't be much longer," she says.

"Hmm?"

She replaces the camera on the table. "You'll have to discard Rita soon."

"Thank God for small mercies," he says, dry again. Maksim stirs in his bassinet, screwing up his face and making a small noise of protest, and Aleksandar rises at once. He crosses to the bassinet and has Maksim in his arms before Anastasia can do the same. "Awake again. _Guten Tag, mein Schatz_."

Maksim's brow furrows. His wide blue eyes fix on Aleksandar's face before drifting elsewhere. One small, fat hand bobs in the air, and he makes a protesting noise once more.

Aleksandar grins at his son. "Indeed! No doubt you are hungry, just like – " he glances at Anastasia "- your mother."

"I'll ring for Mrs. Weiss," she says, pretending not to feel the sting in her heart. She pushes back her chair, sending Sasha snuffling away under the table, and gives the old-fashioned bell-pull on the wall a firm tug.

"Here." Aleksandar kisses Maksim's cheek and passes the baby to her. "I shall have to leave anyway – apparently, I must attend the opera tonight, and there is a rather large stack of documents awaiting my attention first."

Anastasia, her arms full of warm, solid baby, coos at the scrunched-up face. "Wonderful!" she says to her husband. "I had a necklace delivered to Miss Dahl this morning, on your behalf. Small diamonds only, low quality. She should have had it appraised by now. I expect she'll be upset."

There's a brief rap on the door and Mrs. Weiss is shown in. The wet nurse curtsies and gathers Maksim from Anastasia's arms – though not before Anastasia kisses his soft sweet forehead.

"Thank you, my dear," Aleksandar says to Anastasia, in a passable imitation of gratitude. "I have a gift for you, as well."

There's a subtle glint in his eyes that puts her rather in mind of Deryn – or her own reflection. "Oh?" she asks, airy and careless.

The glint becomes unmistakable. "I've kept the negotiations a secret, to surprise you. But within the month, Austria-Hungary will be receiving her Imperial Majesty Alexandra Feodorovna."

Mama.

"That's lovely," Anastasia says, in a passable imitation of pleasure. "Thank you ever so much."

Aleksandar nods at Mrs. Weiss, then graciously holds the door for the woman before departing himself.

Anastasia sits again and picks up a biscuit, eating it while she thinks. She posted the package yesterday… if there's no disruption in the mail service… and then passage from Glasgow to Vienna… by airship, no doubt…

Sasha waddles over and looks up at her imploringly.

"Within the month," she says, tossing the bear a piece of meat, "we should have _another_ visitor. 'A gift for you, as well' – ha!"

Sasha grunts.

"Yes, I know," Anastasia says. She can't resist a cackle. "This should be quite exciting indeed."

.

.

.

**Note:** _Shvybzik_, "imp" or "devil," was one of Anastasia's nicknames. Her mother, Alexandra, drew widespread criticism for breastfeeding OTMA and Alexei. Visitors complained that all she ever wanted to talk about was her husband and kids - she was a "helicopter mom," sometimes suffocatingly so.

Miss Dahl is my invention. The figurative meaning of "gold digger" was first seen in print in 1915.

Paul I, Catherine the Great's son, passed the Pauline Laws, which forbid women from taking the Russian throne as queens regnant. It was a petty revenge against his awesome mom… and, one hundred years later, left Nicholas II fairly screwed.

Then-Prince of Wales Edward, called David within the family, was considered as a match for Olga, though none of the Romanovs seem to have been in favor of it. Edward, much to the benefit of history, was probably sterile.

Alexei's remains were discovered in 2007 alongside those of one of his sisters, finally reuniting the entire family. (Everyone else was recovered in 1992.) DNA tests have shown that he suffered from Hemophilia B.


End file.
